Does Halo 3 Live Up to the Hype?

Whats left to say about Halo 3? How about this: All the pomp and circumstance surrounding its launch sure have been distracting. Commercials that look like clips from a Hollywood movie, extravagant collectors sets that sell for $130, limited-edition Xbox 360s with a green-and-gold Halo-inspired color scheme, and a midnight release that spawned lines snaking all the way around the strip mall. Microsofts so-called biggest entertainment launch in history raked in $170 million in the first 24 hours alone.

Kinda makes it easy to forget that it's just a video game were talking about. Just another Halo, another first-person shooter with  like most games  its share of shortcomings. It features some excellent game play and tons of content . . . but the greatest game ever? It's probably not even the greatest game of 2007.

So whats the problem? Familiarity mostly: Halo 3 feels very, very much like what you know from previous Halos  more like a directors cut than a true sequel. (If Halo were made by Capcom, this one would be "Super Halo 2 Turbo: Championship Edition.") Granted, its a sequel to a sequel, you dont monkey with a good thing, blah blah blah . . . Even so, any sense of wonder or discovery is defused when the levels you're marching through and the enemies youre fighting look so unmistakably like the stuff you first encountered six years ago.

Saving the galaxy, one colorectal exam at a time.

Details

Thats not to say Halo 3 looks last-gen  the scale is enormous at times, with sprawling battlefields bristling with enemies, vehicles, and explosions, and the games lighting effects are often quite lovely (an admittedly strange thing to say about a sci-fi game). But the character models are clunky, some of the maps are a bit bland, and jaggies abound  in a year thats given us the scintillating BioShock and Heavenly Sword, Halo 3 looks just a little bit . . . flat?

Fortunately, it still manages to nail all the elements you expect a Halo to nail. The game play is as keen as ever, thanks to the series always-amazing enemy, AI. Whether its a firefight in a small outpost or a full-scale battle with an alien horde, Halo 3s enemies are consistently cunning, surprising  even amusing. They will pin you behind cover, flank you, unexpectedly rush your position, and generally make you earn every inch of ground, making every encounter a blast.

But Halo 3s biggest achievements are its multiplayer features. In addition to online co-op (up to four players can team up and save the galaxy together), the games competitive options are rich and varied  especially The Forge, a mode that allows you to customize multiplayer maps down to the smallest detail, from where a shotgun is hidden to how high players can jump. Also fun is the ability to record footage and photos from your games; nothing beats the sadistic glee of sending a friend a video clip of him catching your rocket in the face.
Yes, Halo 3 does feel like more of the same, and longtime gamers suffering signs of Halo fatigue might do well to pass on this one. But there's no sense in penalizing a game for its familiarity, especially when it truly is an improvement on a winning formula. No, Halo 3 isnt the greatest game ever. But it is the greatest Halo ever, and thats no small thing.